CHEMICAL CONSULTANTS NETWORK

Livestreaming CCN Meeting Presentation - A Pilot Project

I've been asked to see if we can livestream a CCN meeting. By livestream, I mean broadcasting video of the meeting presentation across the internet in real time.

There are a number of ways to do this. The ones that I'm considering are YouTube's new Live feature, livestream.com, ustream.com and webinar. I've watched livestreamed events many times over the past several years and the technology just keeps getting better. Of the sites I've used to watch livestreamed events, I find YouTube's new Live service to be the most friendly. One of the best features is that the link to the livestream event is retained after the event is over. The video of the event becomes available almost immediately so that people who missed the event can watch the stored video and can find it by using the same link that we'll provide for the live event. As far as I can tell, this requires no work on the part of the event organizers. The video doesn't have to be archived or moved to a new location. It's just available for viewing and listed in the YouTube channel.

YouTube has some special services for non-profit groups which I was not aware of until yesterday. The Live service is not available to all YouTube users. But I've read that non-profit YouTube channels are afforded this service pretty quickly, so hopefully after I set up the CCN YouTube channel and connect it to the YouTube non-profit group, we'll be able to use their Live service. If so, I'd like to try this out for our first pilot livestreaming project. If not, I'll have to look further into the other solutions.

Anyway, with some luck, we'll be able to set this up and test out livesteaming the January meeting presentation next week. Today I'll be researching and testing connecting my DSLR camera to the laptop to see if we can use that camera for the event, which would be superior to the webcam built into my laptop, which is my fall back position. I should also note that some of these livestream products also allow you to livestream using a cell phone and 4G network. I'm not sure if that's the best solution for us and I don't have a 4G phone, but just wanted to mention that.

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